Laughing Lotus NYC
59 West 19th Street
Price - $20 / unlimited week
I had heard of Laughing Lotus previously so I was excited to finally check it out. It's located on West 19th between 5th and 6th which is kind of a cool area to me because it is so close to The Edit Center and that place changed my life.
After walking down a long hall and twisting a few corners I finally came upon the now familiar shoe cubbies that mark the entrance to most yoga studios. The space itself has high ceilings, 3 yoga rooms that have names like Love, Light and Earth.The whole place is very bright and pink and purple with cursive writings everywhere. There was definitely a strong female energy throughout this whole place.
The intro deals here are either $30 for 3 classes over the course of a month or $20 for an unlimited week. I chose the week and was happy to learn that it includes mat rental for all those classes - which is good, that extra buck or two cuts down on the bottom line.
LOTUS HOUR
The class I took was LOTUS HOUR taught by "Elaine." This is like their "express" class, with a Vinyasa flow thats pretty central to it.
When I got into the nice big room, I found my spot somewhere near the middle back so I could follow along with people who actually knew what they were doing. I started to notice that as the 20 or so people filed in that they were very diverse, in age, class, body type, but they also had one thing in common. All 25 of them. They were all female. The ratio here was literally was 25:1. Now in some ways that's kinda cool .... but it was also a lot of yin for my yang to offset. I planned to focus on the yoga and keep in mind why I was here (not to meet those 25 women.) I just ended a long term relationship and that's not really my priority right now.
It was definitely bit humbling and a little bit overwhelming at first. Was I in the wrong class? Was this a pre-natal class or woman only class and were they just letting me stay to be nice? My brain asked a few of these questions. but I decided it was cool. I'm trying to be open and learn.
It got more intense. The teacher started chanting words and everyone chanted those words back. Is this Kirtan? Sanscrit? I don't know! I did my best to play along but I wasn't singing as loud as everyone else and then those words turned into phrases and the phrases turned to verses that we were supposed to sing back and.. What the hell am I even saying here? What does this mean?! What language is this?! Where am I ? Should I leave? Should I just get up and walk out , "sorry wrong class!" As the chanting increased, I considered it more and more.
But then, all of a sudden, we started doing yoga.
And everything was fine.
The teacher talked about postures as expressions of yourselves and not just doing postures or forcing your body into positions. You express yourself through the posture, as the posture, in the posture. The class style was a vinyasa flow similar to YTTP. I am starting to get with the flow and learning when to exhale and inhale as i go from plank to updog to downdog. I am starting to get famliar with the actual phrases they say.
As the class progressed, the postures got harder and there were many I couldn't do. A lot of lunges, a lot of warrior poses, a lot of eagle. I broke a sweat, which for me is pretty easy to do, but still a good sign in a yoga class that is not 105 degrees. Thats like my goal, really.
What I really like is seeing how my foundation in Bikram is paying off. When we do things like Eagle Pose and I have to swing my arms underneath eacother I hear the Bikram monologue telling me to do it. Awkward pose ! Triangle! I know these things. And also it's cool to see how it's different from Bikram. Like many other things there is no right way to do triangle. There are different ways. And they all have value. This bikram base gives me somewhere to start, so i'm not an absolute beginner.... but i'm definitely a beginner.
The class ended and I chatted with Elaine, the teacher, for a minute. I am going to make that a goal of all my classes - to introduce myself to the teacher and thank them. Because it ended up being a great class and all that energy in there was good for me to experience and be open to. By exiting old comfort zones i am finding new ones. I am grateful for that.
I plan to go back to Laughing Lotus 3 or 4 times during the next week - to try all their different classes and various teachers. I'll update you with a proper review after the weekend. My weekend starts today. Hope you have a great one too.
